Steel in the residential market

The UK construction industry has many fundamental and wide reaching issues that urgently need addressing. A combination of growing housing demand, coupled with decreasing quality and low productivity, has created a dilemma and rendered it increasingly difficult for housebuilders and developers to deliver the high number of homes required on time and to budget.

The Government Housing Green Paper adds to this by setting clear targets for the delivery of three million homes to be built by 2020 to replenish the UK’s current housing stock. As a result, the importance of building high-quality, affordable and sustainable homes has never been more crucial.

Meeting these demands presents a considerable challenge to a UK construction industry already feeling the strain of an acute shortage of site-skilled labour and increasing problems attracting new, suitably trained workers. With only 63% of projects delivered on time and only 49% delivered to budget, it is evident traditional build is failing to overcome today’s modern challenges. Herein lies one of the biggest new opportunities for the steel construction industry.

Within the residential sector, knowledge of the physical benefits of steel is continually increasing.

Here developers are pressured to build high-quality housing at high speed and low prices against a backdrop of rising construction costs and a deficiency of available brownfield land to meet demand for new homes and curb house price inflation.

The ability to build very rapidly has underpinned steel’s already large market share in private sector construction. Cost is no longer the only measure of a project. Increasingly, clients, developers, engineers and contractors are looking more closely at things such as speed and predictability of construction programmes.

Meeting handover deadlines enables accurate investment and revenue planning. Importantly, faster construction generates earlier financial returns.

This is now where steel construction is starting to gain ground in the residential sector where a big increase in the use of prefabricated or modular sections has added to the material’s attractions.

With this in mind, Corus Panels and Profiles has sought to grow its residential construction business through technical innovation – launching and developing those products and systems that directly address issues pertinent to the 21st century residential developer.

In particular, this has led to an increased interest in modern methods of construction and steel based housing systems.

Until recently, off-site fabrication, particularly in housing, has been associated with poor quality and higher costs. However, this attitude is continually changing as the technical and practical benefits of OSM are becoming more widely understood along with the realisation that steel based construction has always been an example of OSM.

The reality of building homes in the UK is that it is likely to involve developing on small plots of land and in tight city centre locations. These challenges can be overcome by removing large proportions of construction off-site meaning deliveries can be scheduled on a justintime basis to suit the rest of the build programme and to avoid peak times on the road. In addition, welltimed deliveries mean that no storage space is required on site.

This process is also highly beneficial to the neighbouring community in terms of reducing general levels of activity, as less labour is needed on-site and fewer vehicles travelling back and forth resulting in less noise, dust and overall disturbance.

A study by The Steel Construction Institute suggested that in fact a reduction in site labour of approximately 75% is possible with modular off-site construction.

One of the key benefits of off-site construction is that significant time and cost savings can be made – an advantage to any build project. The very nature of factory-controlled manufacturing encourages predictable build programmes and the whole process is sheltered from weather related delays. The tight quality controls of the fabrication machinery ensures minimal defects resulting in fewer problems needing correcting during later phases of the development, as well as minimising wastage which reduces manufacturing costs and the environmental impact of the project.

Once on site, steel continues to deliver great efficiency for developers, contractors and end-users alike.

The material’s strength-to-weight ratio is the highest of any residential building material enabling it to be easily formed and joined. Additionally, long span steel solutions are capable of creating flexible internal space that can be reconfigured to suit the changing needs of the occupier during a buildings lifetime. When a building does come to the end of its life, steel is unique in that it is 100% recyclable and can be recycled again and again without any degradation of its properties.

The UK construction industry clearly needs to adapt to modern day pressures and respond to the country’s urgent housing needs. This means thinking about the kind of people who are going to be living in the new homes and designing the build and choosing materials accordingly. A good housing design and well thought out public spaces can revitalise whole neighbourhoods and offer attractive places for people to live and work.

Steel is already making a considerable impact on the residential market and predictions are being made that it could surpass traditional methods of construction in the next ten years.

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